AI is everywhere right now.

It writes copy, makes logos, edits videos, answers emails, and now it’s trying to build websites for you as well. You’ve probably seen the ads:

“Tell us about your business and we’ll build your site in 30 seconds.”

Sounds great. Also sounds like every web designer is about to be out of a job, right?

Not quite.

AI is changing web design, absolutely. It will wipe out a lot of low-effort, cookie-cutter work. But will it replace proper, strategic, human-led web design that actually brings in money and builds brands?

No. What it does do is raise the bar and expose who was delivering designs and a UXP to sub-par standards.

This is Neo Agency’s full, no-nonsense look at:

• What AI can really do in web design
• Where it completely falls short
• The most popular AI website builders, and their strengths and weaknesses
• When AI alone is good enough
• When you’re asking for trouble if you don’t involve actual humans
• How we use AI behind the scenes without letting it run the show

By the end, you’ll know whether an AI builder is fine for what you’re doing, or whether you need a team like us steering the ship.

1. What AI Can Actually Do In Web Design

Let’s give AI some credit. It’s not useless. Used properly, it’s seriously powerful.

1.1 Speed: from zero to “something” in minutes

The hardest part of building a site for most people is getting started. Blank screen, blinking cursor, brain gone. AI laughs at that.

AI tools can:

• Generate a homepage layout based on a few questions
• Suggest pages for your site: Home, About, Services, Contact, Blog and more
• Produce draft headlines, subheadings and body copy
• Offer colour palettes and font pairings that look reasonably put together

You go from nothing to a working draft website in a single session. For experiments, side projects or very small businesses, that speed is genuinely useful.

1.2 Patterns: AI is great at familiar structures

Most websites follow similar patterns:

• Hero section with big bold promise and call to action
• Features or services section
• Social proof: testimonials, reviews, logos
• Explainers and benefits
• FAQs and contact forms

AI has been trained on millions of examples of this stuff. It can remix those patterns on demand. If all you need is a basic presence online, that can be enough to get going.

1.3 Automation: AI handles the boring bits

AI plus modern design tools can help with:

• Resizing and cropping images
• Generating alt text drafts for accessibility and SEO
• Suggesting metadata like page titles and descriptions
• Drafting multiple versions of a section for A/B testing
• Producing basic code snippets for simple components

That frees humans up to do the interesting work rather than drowning in repetitive tasks.

2. Meet The Big AI Website Builders: Strengths And Weaknesses

Now let’s talk about the tools you actually see in the wild. There are loads, but some names come up again and again. Here’s a quick tour, in plain English.

2.1 Wix ADI and Wix AI features

What it is:
Wix is one of the biggest DIY website platforms in the world. ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) and newer AI features ask you a few questions and generate a site automatically.

Strengths:

• Very beginner friendly
• Massive template library
• Hosting, editor and AI all in one place
• Quick to go from idea to live site
• Plenty of apps and integrations for simple business needs

Weaknesses:

• Sites can feel generic if you rely only on AI output
• Code and structure can get bloated, which can slow things down
• Truly custom layouts and experiences are harder without developer support
• SEO settings exist, but most users do not know how to make the most of them

Great for: small local businesses who just need an online presence and are happy with “good enough” design.

Less great for: serious SEO, complex user journeys, or brands that need a very distinct identity.

2.2 Squarespace with AI tools

What it is:
Squarespace is known for polished templates and a very visual editor. They’ve added AI features to help with copy and structure.

Strengths:

• Very visually pleasing out of the box
• Designs tend to look professional with minimal effort
• Solid for simple stores, portfolios and brochure sites
• Easy to manage content once set up

Weaknesses:

• Customisation can be limited if you want to push beyond the template
• Advanced ecommerce, complex catalogues or custom logic can get awkward
• AI copy suggestions are generic and often need heavy rewriting
• Less flexible than something like WordPress for big, growing sites
• Code can slow down the site massively and impact ranking due to poor load times

Great for: creatives, small brands, simple stores and portfolio sites.

Less great for: businesses that need a highly tailored system or deep integration with other platforms.

2.3 GoDaddy AI Website Builder

What it is:
GoDaddy’s Websites + Marketing product includes AI features that build simple sites quickly, often pitched at micro businesses.

Strengths:

• Very fast setup
• Everything in one place: domain, hosting, basic marketing tools
• Simple for non-technical business owners to manage

Weaknesses:

• Design flexibility is fairly limited
• Sites can feel like generic templates, no matter what you do
• Not ideal for strong branding or high-converting funnels
• Limited scope for advanced SEO work or custom functionality

Great for: one-person operations that just need something online and do not want to think too hard about it.

Less great for: anyone who sees their website as a key growth engine rather than a box-ticking exercise.

2.4 Hostinger AI Website Builder

What it is:
Hostinger pairs affordable hosting with an AI-driven builder that generates a starting site from your description.

Strengths:

• Cheap entry point
• Quick to generate a first version
• Editor is relatively simple to use
• Good bundle if you need hosting and a basic site in one go

Weaknesses:

• Limited creative control if you want something truly unique
• Harder to scale into a complex or very customised site later
• AI-generated content needs significant rewriting for brand and SEO
• You can outgrow it fast if your business grows quickly

Great for: early-stage projects, very small businesses testing the waters.

Less great for: scaling brands that want a long-term digital foundation.

3. Where AI Web Design Completely Falls Short

For all the clever features, there are some big gaps that matter a lot if your website is supposed to drive actual business.

3.1 AI doesn’t understand your business model

AI has no clue:

• Which service brings in your best margins
• What kind of leads waste your time versus leads you actually want
• What objections your customers have before they call
• Why people choose you instead of your competitors

It just guesses based on patterns from thousands of other businesses. That’s why AI-generated sites often sound like every other brand in your industry.

A human-led team like Neo will ask questions like:

• What do you really want more of: calls, form fills, booked appointments, online sales?
• Which jobs are profitable and which you would rather avoid?
• What have customers told you in reviews, emails and conversations?
• What do you want to be known for in 3 years, not just next month?
• What is your tone of voice?
• Who are your competitors?
• Who is your ideal demographic?

AI cannot run that kind of conversation. It can only dress up the output.

3.2 No accountability, no real-world pressure

AI does not care about:

• Your targets
• Your margin
• Your ad spend
• High volume / low competition Keywords
• Your seasonal peaks and troughs
• Whether a payment processor has failed
• and more – much, much more

It will happily generate the fifteenth version of a hero section while your campaign underperforms.

An agency has skin in the game. If a site fails to perform, it comes back to us. We feel that. We adjust. We test. We refine. AI does none of that unless a human keeps pushing it, and even then it struggles to grasp every element.

3.3 UX, psychology and nuance

User experience is not just “make buttons big and colours nice.”

Good UX considers:

• What someone knows before they land on the page
• What problem they are trying to solve right now
• What doubts they have about taking the next step
• How much information they need before they trust you
• How impatient they are on mobile compared to desktop

AI can shuffle elements around, but it does not genuinely understand human behaviour in context. It does not know when to cut content, when to slow down and educate, or when to go straight for the call to action.

Those decisions come from experience, data and human judgement.

3.4 Integrations, systems and messy reality

Real businesses rarely have clean, simple requirements.

You might have:

• A CRM that needs to capture leads in a specific way
• An affiliate program where you need to report and track the use of promo codes
• Booking software that has to sync across platforms
• Email marketing lists that must be segmented properly
• Payment systems with strict rules
• Industry-specific compliance and legal requirements
• Inventory management protocols

AI builders might offer basic integrations, but stitching everything together in a stable, secure way is still a human job. The more complex your business operations, the clearer this becomes.

4. When An AI-Only Site Is Good Enough

AI is not the enemy. Sometimes it’s absolutely fine.

4.1 Hobby projects and early experiments

If you are:

• Testing a concept
• Launching a fun side project
• Putting up a simple page for an event or club
• Just wanting a URL to stick on a social profile

Then an AI builder is great. You get something live, cheaply and quickly. There is no sense paying for a full agency project if the site is not meant to carry real commercial weight yet.

4.2 Ultra-small businesses with minimal expectations

If you just need:

• Basic contact details
• A short description of what you do
• A couple of images
• A simple contact form

and you are not worried about SEO, funnels, or long-term digital strategy, then AI plus a DIY builder can be enough.

Just be honest with yourself about what you expect that site to actually achieve. If you want it to generate serious business, then you are already asking more from it than AI alone is likely to deliver. An AI builder will not rank your site. You will have a functioning website, but not one that draws in traffic and leads.

5. When You Definitely Need Human-Led Web Design

If any of this sounds like you, it is time to talk to humans.

You:

• Rely on your website to generate leads, sales or bookings
• Compete in a busy market where first impressions matter
• Care about SEO, rankings and long-term visibility
• Want your brand to stand out, not blend into a template
• Need your website tied into other systems and processes
• Do not have the time or headspace to tinker with DIY tools

In these cases, a website is not a checkbox. It is infrastructure. It is part of how your business operates and grows.

That’s where an agency like Neo comes in.

6. How Neo Agency Uses AI Without Letting It Drive

We’re not scared of AI. We use it every day. We just use it properly.

6.1 Ideation and exploration

We use AI to generate:

• Draft headlines and angle ideas
• Alternative ways to explain complex services
• Rough outlines for long-form content

Then we pick the best bits, rewrite heavily, and align everything with your voice and strategy. AI is the brainstorming buddy, not the author.

6.2 Research support

We use AI to:

• Summarise large chunks of background information
• Scan your existing content for duplication, gaps or inconsistencies
• Surface common questions people ask in your niche

Then our team uses that to shape content plans, FAQ sections and content strategies that make sense for real users.

6.3 Production efficiency

We lean on tools for:

• Bulk image processing
• Generating test variants for A/B experiments
• Drafting alt text and metadata that we then refine
• Speeding up code scaffolding for common components and layouts

That means less time wasted on admin, more time spent on UX, conversion, storytelling and performance.

6.4 What we do not hand to AI

We do not let AI:

• Write final copy without human editing
• Decide your brand voice
• Architect your user journeys
• Handle sensitive legal or compliance content
• Replace real design thinking with generic layouts

Those are the areas where our experience, judgement and understanding of your business matter most.

7. Should You Use An AI Builder Or Hire An Agency? A Quick Reality Check

If you are still unsure, here is a simple way to decide.

You are a good fit for an AI builder if:

• You have a tiny or non-existent budget
• Your website is not a critical sales or marketing asset
• You just need something online for now
• You are happy to accept something generic and do not mind rebuilding later

You are a better fit for Neo Agency if:

• Your website is central to how you get customers
• You want to use SEO and content to grow
• You want your brand taken seriously online
• You’d rather focus on your business than fiddling with page builders
• You want a partner who understands strategy, not just design

The tool is not the point. The outcome is.

8. So, Will AI Replace Website Designers?

AI will not replace all website designers. It will replace:

• Designers who only drag and drop without thinking
• Designers who sell template reskins as “custom”
• Designers who ignore strategy, UX and conversion
• Designers who never look at performance or results

The people who treat web design as colouring in are in trouble.

Agencies that combine strategy, creativity, UX and development, and then add AI as extra firepower, are not going anywhere. If anything, they will pull further ahead because they can deliver more, faster.

That is where Neo Agency stands.

We:

• Take the time to understand your business and customers
• Design sites around real-world goals, not just aesthetics
• Use AI where it saves time, never where it kills originality
• Build and manage websites that keep working long after launch

Want to understand AI’s limitations first-hand? Try this, ask it to draw an image that’s in your head, maybe a couple flirting at a table outside of a busy coffee shop. Now look closely.

Can you tell it’s AI?

If you can see the lifelessness and small imperfections in a simple AI-generated image, imagine what your customers (and Google) see in a website built entirely by AI.

If you just want a site that exists, AI will give you one in 30 seconds.
If you want a site that actually performs, converts, and means something, then you definitely need to talk to Neo.